Building Drupal 8 Translation Project Management System From Scratch

5 June, 2018 | Drupal Development | 9 seen

There are many translation project management systems out there, some are better, some are not so good, some are for free or open source while others might be pricey. 

Working in a close and good corporation with a translation company in Tbilisi, in the past, I have helped to set up many systems required for a smooth every-day work for a typical translation company.

Now I decided to see - could Drupal help us build a translation project management system, and surprisingly but after a little brainstorming and a few tests with actual Drupal I found - indeed it's possible to build a translation project management system for internal use of project managers.

And that's why I decided to test building the so-called minimum viable product approach - the system capable of storing data about translators (providers), customers, purchase orders and invoices.

In fact, most of the functionality could be achieved by using Drupal content types, some views and extra pdf and mailing system.

The hard work for handling administrative tasks could be handled by using Drupal views filters.

I believe it will take me about 3-6 months to fully develop such system from scratch. If you might be interested in testing or helping to build it, contact me or leave a comment below.

Disco Boat Tours in Kiev, along the Dnieper River

4 June, 2018 | Tourism objects | 11 seen

Boat Tours in Kiev, along the Dnieper River kind of reminded me a popular track from early 2000 by Electric Six - Danger! High Voltage. Loud music, a lot of booze and hell - it's really cool.

We were just checked in at Hotel Ukraine, had some rest after a flight and decided to explore Kiev by night. We went out from the hotel, around the Independence square caught a taxi and asked for some recommendations - boat tour was an idea from the taxi driver. We agreed, and soon we were taken to the place named River Port from where boats are departing.

There are several places in Kiev where the boats depart. The most easily accessible by metro is the River Port (10 min walk from Pochtovaya Ploshchad metro station of the Blue line) and the mooring near the Dnepr metro station (Red line). Embarkation begins 1 hour before the departure time.

Kiev by night

As usual, I was equipped with a sturdy tripod and made some cool night shots and videos tonight. In the background, you can see a bridge over the Dnieper river illuminated in the colors of the national flag of Ukraine

The "Kiev Panorama" 1 and 1.5-hour boat tours allow time to admire the fascinating scenery of the Right and the Left Bank of Kiev. Sights include the stunning domes of Kiev-Pechersl Lavra, the beautiful Vudybetsky Monastery, the magnificent St. Andrew’s Church and the Magdeburg Rights Column. These Kiev Panorama boat tours depart every day from 10:00 to 19:00 and cost 100 hrn (4 Euros) for the 1-hour tour and 120 hrn (5 Euros) for the 1.5-hour tour. A 50 % discount is given to children aged 7-14 years. The boats depart every hour but usually wait until they are filled or leave earlier if there is the demand.

Source: Boat Tours in Kiev, along the Dnieper River

views from the boat

There are two longer boat trips on Saturday and Sunday, the tour lasts 3 hours or 4 hours and leaves at 13:00 and 15:00. These cruises are fascinating as they follow the Dnieper River upstream to the Kiev Reservoir, which is often referred to as the Kiev Sea. To reach the Kiev Sea the tour boat enters massive locks, which lift the boats up by 7-8 meters and hold back the vast amounts of water with huge iron doors. During this journey, you will enjoy varied beautiful landscapes of the Dnieper hills and the tour is highly recommended as an alternative activity while in Kiev.The ticket price for this longer boat trip is 220 hrn (9 Euros) and 259 hrn (11 Euros).

There are several private companies, which offer various private boat tours and cruises along the Dnieper river. In most cases, however, the tour should be booked beforehand.

Building Drupal 8 Website From Scratch - Part 1 (Domain name, Hosting)

3 June, 2018 | Drupal Development | 11 seen

It has been a while since Drupal 8 has been around. It took me some time before I actually started to develop Drupal 8 websites, sticking with more convenient Drupal 7 (Which I believe still is one of the best versions of Drupal out there. 

If you are familiar with Wordpress CMS, Drupal 8 will feel you comfortable, as the look and feels is pretty similar (This is the thing I don't like about Drupal 8). Anyhow, as I have been developing both Drupal 7and Drupal 8 websites, there is actually no difference for me - except there is a minor new learning curve with Drupal 8, but most of the basic things, like the power of the Drupal, the views module is already implemented in the core version (and many more neat options you could get from Drupal 7 with little tweaking)

With this article, I decided to start new Drupal tutorial series on how to develop Drupal 8 website from scratch. As usual, I will give live examples.

For this series - building a Drupal 8 niche website for passive affiliate income - https://cloudminingreview.info

The idea about Cloud Mining Review affiliate site come after I've been exposed a lot to crypto investments, both buying and mining cryptocurrency. There are already more than 50 articles published on my blog about cryptocurrency, and some 7-8 covers topics regarding cloud mining. These articles are good in terms of website traffic, so I decided to experiment both with building a new Drupal 8 website and make an extra income from the affiliate. To make it happen - I will need to work not only on website development but also on great articles and SEO.

Also, this will give me a good material to share with you.

Screenshot of cloudminingreview.info

This is the website I was able to build with Drupal 8 from scratch in some 4 hours (including 2 basic article writing). As you can see, there is nothing much, but some work has been already done, like setting up VPS (hosting), registering a domain name (GoDaddy), creating a sub-theme from Bootstrap, enabling a couple of modules. Pretty much the most basic stuff.

Back in 2013, when writing a series on How to develop a Drupal website from a scratch I make an introduction post, covering details on website planning - Building a Drupal site from scratch - part 1 - planing

Although many of the technical details covered in that article are already implemented out of the box in Drupal 8, that's still a good and valuable read. 

So before developing a website, be it a Drupal or not Drupal, before actually starting with technical know-how on how to buy a domain name or set up a hosting it's required to make a website planning:

A webpage is like an investment you make in your companies asset. Before building a website, no matter is it Drupal or it is not a Drupal, you must carefully plan - what about is this website? What value does it give? Is it a personal webpage/blog just for personal use, or it's made to attract new/more customers to your business? Attracting new customers - well, yes it sounds nice in theory, but what about taking care of already existing customers? To inform them about your companies activities, offers?

As with the case of Cloud Mining Review, I already knew what I'm trying to build - an affiliate income website covering articles and reviews about cloud mining.

Ok, you are ready, you have a plan for your website, now let's buy a domain name and set up a hosting

Step 1 - Buying a domain name

Personally, I use Godaddy for purchasing new or extending existing domain names. There are many of other domain name sellers, but I will stick with GoDaddy for the ease of this article.

Buying a domain name is simple and straightforward, go to goddady.com look for your desired domain name, add to the cart and purchase, you can pay by a VISA card or PayPal. Once you have bought your domain name, you will need to make some changes in godaddy's dashboard under domain management to point your domain name to the hosting of your choice. I will cover details on that in Step 2 - Hosting

Managing domain name Nameservers in Godaddy.com

Step 2 - Hosting

When it comes down to the hosting, you have zillions of options, you could go with a shared hosting (is there anybody still using such) up to a dedicated server. For the past five or 6 years, I've been working with a custom built VPS from companies like Linode, Digital Ocean and other.

As I'm a huge admirer of Linode, I will stick with a Linode for this tutorial. In fact, writing down a configuration for Linode would ask a separate article, which luckily I have, follow this guide to setup a Drupal 8 on Linode cloud hosting. 

How to Install Drupal 8 with Nginx, PHP-FPM, MySQL, phpMyAdmin on Ubuntu 16.04 - Linode Guide

If you find it too technical and complicated, you could start with some cheaper and probably one-click installation profile from companies like Bluehost (Bluehost VS Linode - Which VPS Hosting To Choose)

Now if you still have decided to stay with a Linode, after you have set up your Drupal 8 website on it, you should go to Linode dashboard and from DNS management enable your domain name. After what you should return to Godaddy.com and from domain name management (again DNS - change Nameservers to ns1.linode.com, ns2.linode.com). 

Hotel Ukraine in Kiev Review

2 June, 2018 | Hotel reviews | 48 seen

Hotel Ukraine is a 4-star hotel located on Independence Square in the heart of Kiev, this hotel offers air-conditioned rooms and suites with elegant décor. It is a 3-minute walk from the Maidan Nezalezhnosti and Kreschatik Metro Stations.

We booked Hotel Ukraine at the end of July 2017, during my birthday trip to Kiev. We stayed here for some 4-5 days. For getting here from Borispol's airport we hired a taxi, which took us here for about EUR 10 - 20. Once on site, it took us some hour to actually check in, as it turned out the system was down at reception and our reservation was handled by hand (together with some other 30 people). 

The rest was a pleasant stay in a typical Soviet Style hotel, hotel Ukraine has a very interesting history (more on that below)

In-room facilities at the Ukraine Hotel include satellite TV and a refrigerator. Your bathroom includes free toiletries and perfumes. Guests enjoy views of the Kreschatyk Street and the surrounding area.

Hotel Ukraine in Kiev

In the evening I took a tripod and made some Kiev night shots, including Hotel Ukraine.

Independence square is located in just at the front of Hotel Ukraine

Independence square in Kiev

A large breakfast buffet is available at the Ukraine Hotel, and 24-hour room service is offered. The Ukrainian and European cuisine is served for lunch and dinner. Live music is sometimes played here.

The hotel features a beauty salon, sauna and massage facilities. A private laundry service is also available

Interesting facts about Hotel Ukraine

The hotel was built in 1961 as the Hotel "Moscow" in a location which originally was occupied by Kiev's first skyscraper, the Ginzburg House. The construction of the hotel finished the architectural ensemble of Kiev's main street - the Khreshchatyk - which formed the post-war reconstruction of central Kiev. The hotel is state-owned and belongs to the State Management of Affairs

Classed as four-star, the Hotel remains average, in fact, some of the rooms are on long-term rent to television companies who take advantage of the view on many central Kiev's buildings that it offers.

May 2018 Dividend Income Report - $140.35

1 June, 2018 | Investments | 14 seen

Disclosure:  This article contains affiliate links to mintos.com peer to peer lending website, by clicking on links on this page and by making an investment on mintos.com, I might earn affiliate income at no cost to you. Also, I'm not a financial advisor and I don't give you any advice, I'm just sharing my own experience. Investments in stocks, funds, bonds or cryptos are risk investments and you could lose some or all of your money. Do your due diligence before investing in any kind of asset.

Interest income in May 2018

From the Baltic stocks, Mintos.com peer to peer lending  and from cryptocurrency lending on Poloniex.com I got following income last month:

• Mintos.com: EUR 53.97
• Poloniex.com: EUR 1.03
• Amber Grid: EUR 24.18
• Energijos Skisrsymo Operatorius :  EUR 15.08
• Klaipedos Nafta: EUR 19.39
• Baltic Horizon Fund: EUR 5.4

Total: EUR 119.05 / USD 140.35

In May, for the first time profit generated from Mintos.com peer to peer lending platform cracked EUR 50, that's thanks to the lucrative cashback program featured on the platform.

Year over year growth rate for dividend income

The YoY growth rate for my dividend income in May is 130.38%

April 2018

April 2017

Change

Mintos

€53.97

€23.01

€30.96

Olympic Entertainment Group

€0

€18.00

-€18.00

Zemaitijos Pienas

€0

€17.00

-€17.00

Poloniex

€1.03

€0.00

€1.03

Amber Grid

€24.18

€0.00

€24.18

Energijos Skisrsymo Operatorius

€15.08

€0.00

€15.08

Klaipedos Nafta

€19.39

€0.00

€19.39

Baltic Horizon Fund

€5.04

€0.00

€5.04

Total

€118.69

€58.01

€60.68

Now, this has been one of the busiest dividend paying months so far, and in fact, there was one more dividend I was looking for in May - Kauno Energijos, but seems they are going to pay in June. Also, you can see, there are two companies which paid me a year ago, but didn't pay in 2018 - Olympic Entertainment Group and Zemaitijos Pienas.

At the end of March, Olympic Entertainment Group Contemplated Exit From Nasdaq Baltics (Cash Offer To BuyBack Shares) and I sold my holdings there. In case with Zemaitijos Pienas, I made a little mistake here, and sold my holdings (thus losing EUR 45 dividend). See: Thoughts about Upcoming Dividend Income From Baltic Stocks in May 2018 (Zemaitijos Pienas, Olympic Entertainment Group, Klaipedos Nafta)

Monthly income to the date

The cumulative earnings for 2018 are $452.54 which is about 37.71% of my goal for 2018 ($1200)

2017 in Review and Financial Goals for 2018

Monthly Income chart as of May 2018

On the average, I should pull about $106.78 each month for the next 7 months to reach my $1200 goal for 2018. Right now it seems I'm on the right track, but it might get complicated, as there are both higher end months with forecasted income up to $200/mo and unfortunately there are a couple of months left in the year when income could be lower than  $100/mo. I hope it will even out at the end.

Dividend Income Meter May 2018

About investments and return 2018

Since the begging of the year, I've additionally invested $5,830.82 what is about 54.49% of the total $10,700.18 planned investments in 2018. Also, I've reached 1.86% in value for my planned 1 million dollar savings account by 2045. I keep reporting USD values, but in fact, most of my investments are done in EUR currency. USD/EUR exchange rates affect my reporting values a lot, and in fact, because of a stronger dollar in May, the total worth for my portfolio actually shrunk by about USD 1,500. Ouch.

On the average, I should invest about $695.62/mo until the end of the year to reach my goals.

YTD value for the entire portfolio at the end of May is down by - 15.04% but positive since the begging in 2017 with a positive 4.14 % value growth.

Investment portfolio structure May 2018

There are some changes in my portfolio - I have sold funds and started to acquire European Stocks. In May I bought Atrium and Volta stocks, see:

• First European Stock Buy: VIE:ATRS
• Latest European Stock Buy: AMS:VTA

As it happened in March, this May was really bad for my long-term crypto holdings, I lost about $1,000 in value for cryptos in May. The total drop in value for cryptos at the end of May was -45.73% YTD but still positive since July 2017 +43.62%

Goals for May 2019

This is my favorite part of the reports - trying to forecast/set goals for the next year. Before setting goals for May 2019 dividend income, let's see what I forecasted for this May:

I hope that after a year I will complete my first smaller investment goal to reach $100/mo and I'm looking to have dividend income at about $150/mo in May 2018.

I surely cracked my smaller $100 goal but missed by about $10 the $150 goal. To motivate myself better for next year (month) goals I will deposit additionally the missing part to Mintos.com peer to peer lending platform. See: Matching interest earned on Mintos.com Peer to Peer Lending Platform

Now, I have a goal to crack $300 in May 2019. From today's perspective hard but doable.

How To Transfer ETC Balance from MyEtherWallet.com to Poloniex.com

1 June, 2018 | Crypto | 23 seen

In today's article, I will demonstrate how to transfer Ethereum Classic (ETC) from MyEtherWallet.com to Poloniex.com exchange (or any other etc address).

For a prelude - I first created a MyEtherWallet address to claim Golden Fleece Tokens (How To Add a Custom Token Balance in MyEtherWallet.com), then I built a gpu ether mining rig and claimed all earnings via MyEtherWallet. With time I started to mine other coins, and at one stage decided to give it a try for ETC coin (probably I was looking for a Callisto Airdrop).

Now I wanted to buy some XRP (ripple) on Poloniex and decided to use pre-mined ETC coins, which I had stored on MyEtherWallet.

For MyEtherWallet I have stored keystore key, and in order to login into a wallet, I need to upload it and in combination with a password to unlock wallet. Before trying to access your ETC funds on MyEtherWallet, make sure you have switched to ETC Network (right upper corner)

Sending ETC from MyEtherwallet

Enter the address to which you are sending and amount to send. For a gas limit, I left to default values.

Confirmation

Now, its time to confirm your transaction, after which you will be provided with TX details. In took me about 10 minutes to transfer ETC from MyEtherWallet to Poloniex.com

Hope it helps.

Reducing 10% from existing portfolio (Mintos, Baltic stocks & Crytpo) - To quickly accumulate cash for funding US stock purchases on LynxBroker

20 May, 2018 | Investments | 23 seen

I didn't have a plan to reduce my existing holdings, neither from Baltic stocks, Mintos or crypto investments, but in order to keep up with my investment goals - I just have to

Long story short - I opened a low-cost European brokerage account at Lynx Broker, and despite it requires a minimum deposit of EUR 3,000 to open an account there, I asked could I do it in several batches. Turns out you can.

Low-Cost European Stock Broker - LynxBroker.com Review

Now, I decided to start small and deposited EUR 470 (~USD 550) to Lynxbroker, once money arrived I happily decided to buy first US stock. And here it was, warning saying:

The order on was rejected with reason: 'YOUR ORDER IS NOT ACCEPTED. MINIMUM OF 2000 USD (OR EQUIVALENT IN OTHER CURRENCIES) REQUIRED IN ORDER TO PURCHASE ON MARGIN, SELL SHORT, TRADE CURRENCY OR FUTURE'.

There is a good explanation for this warning on the Lynx broker website (Minimum requirements)

Minimum amount for trading in options

The total value of your portfolio (value of securities plus cash) must be at least $ 2,000 USD (or an equivalent amount of a different currency) in order to be able to trade in all options, futures and American shares. If your portfolio does not meet this minimum requirement, you will still be able to trade in European shares and options.

One option on how I could overcome this obstacle - I could transfer my existing Baltic Portfolio to the Lynx platform. But I still want to keep Baltic stocks separate from US stocks, and that's how I come up with a plan to reduce my existing holdings in the Baltic stocks, Mintos and crypto investments to quickly accumulate cash for funding the missing part on LynxBroker.

Until the end of May, I plan to sell off some low dividend paying Baltic stock worth around EUR 385 today, and also I plan to trim my investments on crypto, by cutting 10% off, as of today's exchange rates I could get around USD 443. Also, I have already stopped auto invest on Mintos.com peer to peer platform and hope to get around EUR 200 by the end of the month.

In total, by reducing my existing portfolio by 5-10% (in some positions) I could quickly accumulate ~ $1,120, the rest should be funded from additional cash investments. 

2,000-550-1,120 = $380

Just $380 I should deposit additionally from my pocket to reach $2,000 minimum account balance to start acquiring US stocks. 

Low Cost European Stock Broker - LynxBroker.com Review

18 May, 2018 | Investments | 60 seen

Lynxbroker.com is a European (Dutch) discount brokerage offering relatively cheap $5 commissions for US stock trades.

Lynxbroker.com is affiliated with Interactive Brokers, and what's really sweet  - the minimum required deposit is just EUR 3,000

Best stock options trading platform in Georgia (and most of the rest of the World)

I was struggling to gather a minimum of $10,000 deposit to open an Interactive Brokers account when a blog reader Mikheil recently pointed me to a Lynx broker. 

Hi Reinis, take a look at https://www.lynxbroker.com/, https://www.lynxbroker.fi/, https://www.lynx.nl/ in Europe. Their parent company I believe is Interactive Brokers, but with Lynx you can open an account with a minimum of 3000 USD.

Said done, in total it took me about 2 weeks to successfully open a Lynx broker account with even less than EUR 3,000 depositing. After Mikheil' s comment, I proceeded to LynBroker.com webpage and started my application, by filling out some basic data. I didn't upload proof of identity and proof of residency yet.

In the next morning, I received a phone call from a Lynx Broker account manager - we chit-chatted about the system and I agreed to send required documents in the next week. Before proceeding with documents, I sent an email just to clarify some questions:

Hi guys and gals at Lynx broker!
I have a question regarding minimum deposit fee (EUR 3,000)
I truly understand the meaning of such limit (to keep active and qualified investors onboard), however, I keep wondering is it still possible to open a Lnyxbroker account, by depositing this amount in several batches, like in 3-6 months. For example EUR 1,000 in May, EUR 1,000 in June, EUR 1000 in July.
The thing is - currently, I'm depositing around $1,000 monthly in stock purchases with my current broker (Baltic stocks). At this stage, I feel I want to go into US dividend stocks and would love slowly building up US stock portfolio with LynxBroker. My plan is to build around $10K -12K US stock portfolio in next 12 months. That would mean about 20-30 stock trades per year. 
I was contacted by Lynx Office manager (regarding my profile confirmation - proof of address and ID), and he recommended it would be advised better sell off my existing portfolio at the Baltics and re-purchase stocks via Lynx - in fact, I would love to keep my Baltic stocks separate and use Lynx Broker exclusively for US (and maybe CA) stocks

Despite on your position in this matter I still think LynxBroker is one of the best European brokers and I will open an account with you. Surely it would be cool to get a positive answer and start acquiring stocks now. 

After a couple of days I got an answer:

...

In response to your questions I’m sending you this mail.

I would like to inform you that your strategy of building a US stock portfolio is not a problem at LYNX.

It is possible to transfer the minimum deposit in several batches.  

We would like to welcome you as a client at LYNX.

...

Cool, I thought and proceeded with sending required documents to open an account.

It took me another week to get verified, and on the May 16, 2018 evening all was set up and I was ready to start trading (acquiring US dividend-paying stocks)

About Lynx

Our goal is to offer all private investors the best trading possibilities on stock exchanges all over the world. In 2006 LYNX started out in the Netherlands with this goal. We are now offering our services in six European countries. It’s no coincidence that we have quickly developed into a major player in Europe: we work on improving our service step by step, each and every day. To us, it’s all about one thing: the success of our clients.

User-friendly, reliable, fast: the LYNX Trading Platform has already been awarded several times as the world’s best trading platform. Besides having been singled out several times as Best Broker, the customer service of LYNX has also received the Best Service Award from CASH Magazine for the past two years. Likewise, clients have highly rated the customer service of LYNX, with a score of 8.8/10 from last year.

Matching interest earned on Mintos.com Peer to Peer Lending Platform

12 May, 2018 | Peer to Peer Lending | 14 seen

Seems that 2018 is a year of great experiments for me, I have started to build up an emergency fund, also I've started 52 weeks money challenge and now I have decided to run another financial experiment - matching interest earned on mintos.com peer to peer platform.

The challenge is simple, at the start of each month I will match and deposit the same amount I received from the platform in the previous month.

Mintos.com Review After 12 Month of Investing in Peer to Peer Lending

Disclosure:  This article contains affiliate links to mintos.com peer to peer lending website, by clicking on links on this page and by making an investment on mintos.com, I might earn affiliate income at no cost to you. Also, I'm not a financial advisor and I don't give you any advice, I'm just sharing my own experience. Investments in stocks, funds, bonds or cryptos are risk investments and you could lose some or all of your money. Do your due diligence before investing in any kind of asset. 

I've been investing with Mintos.com since the start of 2017. The platform has turned out to be the most successful in terms of interest received. Mintos contributes regularly to my dividend income reports with largest percentage of income generated. Despite I really love how the Mintos.com operates and generates income I keep humble investments here. I'm cautious with peer to peer lending in general. Lack of regulation and so on. 

A lot has changed since 2017 and I have been investing in the Baltic stocks and cryptocurrencies heavily. I still deposit time after time some money on mintos.com platform, but I keep it doing irregular. In fact, for the rest of 2018, I have decided to work out to build a high yielding US stock portfolio and I'm not planning any large investments neither on Mintos platform or the Baltic stock market.

In April I got EUR 48.11 in interest from Mintos platform. In the month of May, I will match it and deposit EUR 48.11. As I keep all interest received on the platform and reinvest, by matching interest I will double the power of interest. On average my investments on Mintos yields me about 1.10% monthly. Let's do the math.

• Without matching: 48.11+1.10% = 48.63 (interest EUR 0.52)
• With matching: (48.11x2)+1.10% = 97.27 (interest EUR 1.05)

By matching to the interest received I'm making an extra one euro per month. Here comes the power of compound interest.

Let's assume that I made EUR 49.16 in the month of May (48.11+1.05), in June I will match it again, but this month it will be 2X49.16 = EUR 98.32

Let's add an interest: 98.32+1.1% = EUR 99.4 or EUR 1.08 extra

I'm not saying this matchmaking will cardinally boost my earnings on the platform, but I'm saying that over a term of one year it's possible to boost total income from about EUR 48 to about EUR 60-65 even with depositing (matchmaking) small amount of money.

I will keep this experiment runing for the next 12 months. An extra EUR 12 ($14.35) could add up to my goal reaching $300 per month in May 2019 dividends. For right now, my projected May 2019 earnings stands at USD 140.12, by adding $14.35 it would mean $154.47. Still short of $146, but let's leave that for another article.

High Yield Dividend Stock Buy Ideas: AWP, FGB, DHY

10 May, 2018 | Investments | 8 seen

I still haven't opened a decent discount stock broker for buying US stocks (I have been in talks of opening a broker account at Lynx Broker), while in the middle of the process, I decided to investigate some high yield dividend stocks in the US.

There are dozens of great dividend income blogs, I love to read their monthly dividend income reports and of course, compare my self to others. Just google - "+month dividend income report" and you will be amazed finding a ton of great reading.

Some bloggers are high net individuals while others are not. One interesting blog I have been following for about a year is John from DividendQuest.com, by reading John's monthly dividend income reports I noticed he is investing in high yield REIT's, with a dividend yield ranging 7-11%. Now, this is some serious yield, but sure it's more risk as well. What was more surprising (at least for me). John has in his portfolio stocks paying dividends monthly. Wow, I  thought. DividendQuest.com inspired me, and without hiding, I admit I took following stocks from John's portfolio - AWP, FGB, and DHY.

My plan is simple - after I will open an account with a discount broker I'm planning to put $1,500 to purchase these shares. With yields ranging from 9.13% (DHY) up to 11.67% (FGB), such small $1,500 investment should add about 10% annual yield, giving about $150 in dividends, or average $12.5 monthly.

Now $12.5 monthly is what I'm looking for right now. With high yielding US stocks paying dividends monthly I could really boost the lower end income months in my current portfolio (March, August, November).

Also, these 3 stocks could add up to my goal reaching $300 per month in May 2019 dividends. For right now, my projected May 2019 earnings stands at USD 127.62., by adding $12.5 it would mean $140.12. Still short of $160, but let's leave that for another article.

Super Charging May 2019 Dividend Income ($300/mo Goal)

8 May, 2018 | Investments | 18 seen

May is one of the busiest dividend paying months from the Baltic Stocks. I've been investing in the Baltic stocks since 2017, and dividend income generated from the Baltic stocks slowly are growing. Nothing to brag about, but still, humble but decent.

In May 2017, I made $65.45 from peer to peer lending and Baltic stocks. Although the May of 2018 is just barely started I'm looking on about $140 this May. That's about $75 increase year on year.

In fact, May of 2018 promised about $200 in passive income, but I rushed a bit and sold one great dividend paying stock, as I believed a dividend cut to 0 is happening, just shortly I sold, it was announced that there will be an increased dividend. I sold with a profit and re-invested this money into other dividend-paying stocks. But after an announcement came I calculated that if I would keep the stock I would make about EUR 45 from this stock in dividends this May. Sadly I sold a day before the announcement. 

As they say, that's life, nothing is granted. What at one point seems like the bad stock, in the other morning can turn into best dividend yielding stock. No regrets here, but if there is a lesson learned - I should wait for more information in the future, before actually hitting the sell button.

As I keep investing in the Baltic stocks, I decided to supercharge dividend income to at least $300 in May 2019. That would ask to double my May 2018 earnings or it would mean about $150 growth year on year. $150 seems a great number to work with.

The plan is simple - I will keep building up my existing and adding new dividend-paying stocks to my portfolio for the next 12 months. Also, I'm planning to increase my investments with mintos.com peer to peer lending.

Both individuals and entities can invest through Mintos. Individual investors must be at least 18 years old, have a bank account in the European Union or third countries currently considered to have AML/CFT systems equivalent to the EU, and have their identity successfully verified by Mintos. At the moment, US citizens or taxpayers cannot register as investors at Mintos.

Affiliate link here: Sign up for Mintos.com here. By using this affiliate link for registration both you and I will receive — 1% of your average daily balance which should be paid in 3 installments for the first 90 days

Disclosure:  This article contains affiliate links to mintos.com peer to peer lending website, by clicking on links on this page and by making an investment on mintos.com, I might earn affiliate income at no cost to you. Also, I'm not a financial advisor and I don't give you any advice, I'm just sharing my own experience. Investments in stocks, funds, bonds or cryptos are risk investments and you could lose some or all of your money. Do your due diligence before investing in any kind of asset. 

April 2018 Dividend Income Report - $95.47

6 May, 2018 | Investments | 10 seen

Welcome to the twelfth (#12) dividend income report, covering earnings I've made from the Baltic dividend-paying stocks and peer to peer lending (both fiat and cryptocurrencies).

Wow, already twelve dividend income reports, that's one year of tracking my road to the million dollars by the time I will turn 60. The last April marked also a small one-year anniversary since I've been investing in the Baltic stocks, you can read my review here: Baltic Dividend Stock Market Review - Thoughts After Investing for a One Year

April turned out neither good, neither bad. I was looking to crack $100 milestone this month, but because of one dividend payment been paid in May, instead of April, the total income was lower as expected. (That's for the bad news, but still, nothing bad here, as I still will get paid in May). 

Disclosure:  This article contains affiliate links to mintos.com peer to peer lending website, by clicking on links on this page and by making an investment on mintos.com, I might earn affiliate income at no cost to you. Also, I'm not a financial advisor and I don't give you any advice, I'm just sharing my own experience. Investments in stocks, funds, bonds or cryptos are risk investments and you could lose some or all of your money. Do your due diligence before investing in any kind of asset. 

Interest income in April  2018

From the Baltic stocks, Mintos.com peer to peer lending  and from cryptocurrency lending on Poloniex.com I got following income last month:

• Mintos.com: EUR 48.11
• Poloniex.com: EUR 1.44
• Tallinna Kaubamaya Group: EUR 21.73
• Lietuvos Energijos gamyba  EUR 7.43

Total: EUR 78.71 / USD 95.47

Year over year growth rate for dividend income

The YoY growth rate for my dividend income in March is 261.49%

April 2017

April 2018

Change

Mintos

€25.83

€48.11

€22.28

Poloniex

€0.00

€1.44

€1.44

Tallinna Kaubamaya Group

€0.00

€21.73

€21.73

Lietuvos Energijos gamyba

0

€7.43

€7.43

Total

€25.83

€78.71

€52.88

The growth has happened because of the increased investment on Mintos peer to peer lending platform and two additional dividend paying stocks from the Baltics.

Monthly income to the date

The cumulative earnings for 2018 are $312.19 which is about 26.02% of my goal for 2018 ($1200)

Monthly Income chart as of April 2018

On the average, I should pull about $110.98 each month for the next 8 months to reach my $1200 goal for 2018. Right now it seems I'm on the right track, as there are already a few months in 2018 I'm looking on close to $150/mo and in fact will try to crack $200/mo milestone this year.

Dividend Income Radar April 2018

About investments and return 2018

Since the begging of the year, I've additionally invested $5,859.19 what is about 54.76% of the total $10,700.18 planned investments in 2018. Also, I've reached 1.98% in value for my planned 1 million dollar savings account by 2045. 

On the average, I should invest about $605.12/mo until the end of the year to reach my goals. 

YTD value for the entire portfolio at the end of March is down by - 10.46% but positive since the begging in 2017 with a positive 10.31 % value growth.

Investment portfolio structure April 2018

Crypto regained some value back in April.

Goals forecasts for March 2019

This is my favorite part of the reports - trying to forecast/set goals for the next year. When looking on April 2019 dividend income, it would be cool to reach $150/mo a year after. From today's perspective - hard, but doable. There are a few scenarios I'm considering now - one it would ask to boost my deposit on Mintos or and buy more Baltic stocks or I should start adding US dividend-paying stocks to the portfolio. I'm looking on both now.

Amazon OneLink? No, Thanks - Improve Page Load times by removing Third Party scripts

5 May, 2018 | Servers | 5 seen

I felt very enthusiastic once Amazon announced OneLink, it seemed like a missing puzzle to serve international customers and boost earnings as an Amazon associate.

Now many months later I have very ambivalent feelings regarding this - yes, I've made some extra dollar (pound and euro) by serving Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.de - on the other hand, earnings from these versions are humble not to say more, and in fact earnings from Amazon.com have started to dip for couple of months (I'm not blaming Amazon OneLink here)

After I decided to remove Social Share buttons from my blog to improve Page load times I discovered that on some pages javascript from Amazon actually is the biggest issue for blogs performance, and with combination of low income from Amazon OneLink, I decided it's time to further limit external javascript in order to improve page load times and speed. 

Here is the test from an article containing amazon associates third-party javascript (OneLink and Recommendations) before optimizing this page for better load times

Page load times for page with Amazon Javascripts

In fact, that's a pretty decent result, page load time 2.21 seems great, but what makes me worried is the total request count - 279, this seems a lot, and it turns out, these are requests by Amazon's javascript:

Request by domains

More than 60% of requests come from Amazon javascript, 42% are from Amazon's OneLink.

Now, I decided to stop using Amazon's OneLink and to eliminate its javascript from my pages.

Results of testing after removing Amazon javascript from page

Now, this is some serious performance boost - page load time is under 2 sec, and the total request is just 110. 

How To Regenerate Drupal GMAP Marker Cache (Request for Invalid Marker Set)

3 May, 2018 | Drupal Development | 21 seen

Although it doesn't happen often, in rare situations you might get in trouble with GMAP marker sets. The most common case is change with folder permissions or migrating site to another host.

How to add Custom Markers for Gmap Module Drupal

Here is how it looks:

Request for invalid marker set notification

And here is how map field looks:

Map with a missing marker (s)

The default map is displayed.

Luckily there is a simple solution - delete gmap.markers.js file from files/js folder, and markers will regenerate by themselves.

Now, run clear cache and all markers should be back

Marker cache cleared

Postcards from Kuldīga

1 May, 2018 | | 6 seen

Kuldīga has been featured on the blog many times, starting old brick bridge over the Venta river, including flying fish over Venta rapid, ending some of the finest Kuldīga restaurants

In today's Piece of Life series - a tranquil sunset from Kuldīga

Statue of Love during sunset in Kuldīga

A cool, wood carved sculpture. Compare this one with the metallic sculpture of Ali and Nino (located in Batumi, Georgia)

Brick bridge in Kuldīga

Brick bridge in Kuldīga over the river of Venta according to some sources is the longest of its kind bridge in Europe.

The brick bridge across the Venta has been serving the people of Kuldīga since 1874. It was according to 19th century standards. The 164 metre long arched bridge with seven spans of brick arches with boulder abutments was not only the largest and most ornate in the territory of Latvia but also one of the most modern in Europe.

Postcards from Kuldīga